Composers Datebook

American Public Media

4.7 (176)
MUSIC HISTORY
UPDATED DAILY

Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.

20H AGO

Verdi's 'Otello' premieres

Synopsis One of the greatest of all Italian operas had its first performance on this day in 1887. Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi, was a musical version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello. The opera was written when he was in his 70s, years after he had supposedly retired from a long and successful career as Italy’s most famous opera composer. It was one of the greatest triumphs of his career. The premiere took place at La Scala, Milan, with famous singers in the lead roles, and the cream of international society and the music world in the audience. Even the orchestra was distinguished: among the cellists was a young fellow named Arturo Toscanini, who would later become one of the world’s most famous conductors. Two of the violinists had the last name of Barbirolli — they were the father and grandfather of another famous conductor-to-be, John Barbirolli. Both Toscanini and Barbirolli would eventually make classic recordings of Verdi’s Otello. And speaking of recordings, in the early years of the 20th century, Italian tenor Francesco Tamago, who created the role of Otello, and the French baritone Victor Maurel, who created the role of Iago, both recorded acoustical phonograph excerpts from Verdi’s Otello — the technological marvel of the 20th century — preserving, belatedly, a sonic souvenir of a 19th-century Verdi premiere. Music Played in Today's Program Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Act I Excerpt from Otello; Ambrosian Chorus; New Philharmonia Orchestra; John Barbirolli, conductor; EMI Classics 65296

2 min
1D AGO

The passing of Iannis Xenakis

Synopsis Many 20th century composers were scarred by the violence and turmoil of their times — but none quite so literally as Greek composer, engineer, and architect Iannis Xenakis, who died at 78 on today’s date in 2001. In the early 1940s, Xenakis was a member of the Communist resistance in Greece, fighting first the German occupation, then, as the war ended, the British. In 1945, when Xenakis was 23, his face was horribly disfigured by a shell fragment fired by a British tank, resulting in the loss of one of his eyes. Two years later he was forced to flee to Paris. As he laconically put it: “In Greece, the Resistance lost, so I left. In France, the Resistance won.” Xenakis wanted to write music, but earned his living as an architect and engineer in Paris at Le Courbusier’s studio. Xenakis designed and was involved in major architectural projects for Le Courbusier, including the famous Philips pavilion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. As a composer, Xenakis wrote highly original music that was meticulously ordered according to mathematical and scientific principles, but sounded intensely emotional, almost primeval. His music might even be described as “Pre-Socratic,” as Xenakis seemed to echo the theories of the early Greek thinker Pythagoras, who saw a relationship between music, mathematics, and religion. Music Played in Today's Program Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001): Opening of A Colone; New London Chamber Choir; Critical Band; James Wood, conductor; Hyperion 66980 Huuem-Duhey; Edna Michell, violin; Michael Kanka, cello; Angel 57179

2 min
2D AGO

Kurtag's Tribute

Synopsis Contemporary Hungarian composer György Kurtág is famous for writing short, sparse and concentrated musical works. He has, however on occasional written more expansive pieces, including one big orchestral piece for the Berlin Philharmonic and some works for large chorus. Obsessively self-critical, Kurtág disavowed most of the music he wrote before his mid-thirties, which included some for chorus, but a suggestion from Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono that he write for chorus again resulted in a work that the BBC Singers premiered in London on today’s date in 1981. It has an Italian title, Omaggio a Luigi Nono, or Tribute to Luigi Nono, — a tip of the hat to his Italian colleague, but the work itself is a setting of bits of Russian poems. Now at the time of its premiere, 25 years after the Russian-led invasion of Hungary in 1956 and 10 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hungarian eyebrows were raised when Kurtág chose to set Russian texts. Disparaging or just plain dissing anything Russian was the normal M.O. for Hungarian intellectuals in those days. Kurtág, for his part, stood his ground: as an ardent Dostoevsky’s fan, he simply said Russian was a sacred language to him. Music Played in Today's Program György Kurtág (b. 1926): Omaggio a Luigi Nono; SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart; Marcus Creed, director; SWR Music; 93.174

2 min
3D AGO

Haydn's 'real' Miracle Symphony

Synopsis On today’s date in 1795, Haydn was in England and about to conduct one of his new symphonies at The King’s Theater in London. An early biographer recounts what happened next: “When Haydn entered to conduct the symphony, the curious audience left their seats and crowded towards the orchestra the better to see the famous Haydn. The seats in the middle of the floor were thus empty, and hardly anyone was there when the theater’s great chandelier crashed down and broke into bits, throwing the numerous gathering into great consternation. As soon as the first moment of fright was over and those who had pressed forward could think of the danger they had luckily escaped and find words to express it, several persons uttered the state of their feelings with loud cries of ‘Miracle! Miracle!’” And thus, one of Haydn’s symphonies, his symphony No. 96, came to be called The Miracle Symphony. It’s a nice story, but it actually occurred just before the first performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102. Somehow or another the nickname got stuck to one of Haydn’s earlier London Symphonies, and simply refused to become “unstuck.” In his book, The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide, musicologist Michael Steinberg suggests an elegant solution: He still lists Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 as The Miracle but give the Symphony No. 102 a new nickname: The REAL Miracle. Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 96; Concertgebouw Orchestra; Sir Colin Davis, conductor; Philips 442 611

2 min
4D AGO

Brahms in New York

Synopsis On today's date in 1862, while President Lincoln was fretting over General McClellan’s unwillingness to confront Secessionist rebels, New York concert-goers could find some relief from Civil War headlines by attending a New York Philharmonic concert at Irving Hall. Conductor Carl Bergman had programmed some brand-new music by a Hamburg composer named Brahms, whose Serenade No. 2 received its American premiere at their February 1 concert — a concert that took place almost two years to the day after the serenade’s world premiere in Hamburg in 1860. Give the New York Philharmonic some credit for daring programming. After all, it would be another year before the same Serenade would be performed in Vienna. Moreover, in 1863, during the Vienna Philharmonic’s final rehearsal of this “difficult” new music by a composer nobody there had ever heard of, open mutiny broke out. The first clarinetist stood up and declared that the music was too darn hard and the orchestra simply refused to play it. Conductor Otto Dessoff, who had programmed the Brahms, turned white with anger, laid down his baton, and resigned on the spot, joined by the Vienna Philharmonic's concertmaster and principal flutist. Alarmed at the threatened disintegration of their orchestra, the Viennese rebels capitulated; and the performance of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 took place as scheduled and was, to the mutineers’ chagrined astonishment, a tremendous success. Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Serenade No. 2; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor; Telarc 80522

2 min
5D AGO

Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass

Synopsis American composer Philip Glass was born in Baltimore on this date in 1937. Glass says he discovered music via his father’s radio repair shop, where, in addition to servicing radios, Papa Glass sold records. When certain titles sold poorly, Papa would take them home and play them for his three children, trying to discover why they didn't appeal to customers. And so the future composer rapidly became familiar with commercially unsuccessful records of Beethoven string quartets, Schubert piano sonatas, and Shostakovich symphonies. After some decades studying music, both commercially successful and not, Glass struck out on an original path. In the 1970s, he made a name for himself as both a composer and a performer of hypnotically and repetitiously patterned music for dance and theatrical events in association with Mabou Mines and avant-garde theatrical director Robert Wilson. In 1976 the Philip Glass-Robert Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach premiered in France and was subsequently staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In the decades that followed, Glass has composed many more operas, symphonies, and film scores, and has the dubious distinction of generating of “Philip Glass jokes,” the most famous being: Knock-knock. Who’s there? Philip Glass. Knock-knock. Who’s there? Philip Glass Knock-knock. Who’s there? Philip Glass Music Played in Today's Program Philip Glass (b. 1937): Symphony No. 3; Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Nonesuch 79581

2 min
6D AGO

Shapero goes classical

Synopsis On today’s date in 1948, Leonard Bernstein, 29, conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere of a new orchestral work by Harold Shapero, 27. This was Shapero’s Symphony for Classical Orchestra, a work modeled on Beethoven but sounding very much like one of the Neo-Classical scores of Igor Stravinsky. This was exactly what Shapero intended, but some found the music perplexing. Aaron Copland, for one, wrote, “Harold Shapero, it is safe to say, is at the same time the most gifted and baffling composer of his generation.” That comment by Copland, one should remember, came at a time when Shapero’s generation included the likes of Barber, Bernstein, Menotti and Rorem. But Copland continued, “Stylistically, Shapero seems to feel a compulsion to fashion his music after some great model. He seems to be suffering from a hero-worship complex — or perhaps it is a freakish attack of false modesty.” “Copland was so original that he just couldn’t understand anyone who wasn’t,” Shapero responded. Even so, Shapero’s superbly crafted orchestral imitations suffered many decades of neglect. In the 1980s, however, conductor and composer Andre Previn fell in love with Shapero’s Symphony, performing and recording it with the LA Philharmonic, and declared its Adagietto movement the most beautiful slow movement of any American symphony. Music Played in Today's Program Harold Shapero (1920-2013): Symphony for Classical Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; New World 373

2 min
JAN 29

Donald Shirley

Synopsis Today marks the birthday of American pianist and composer Donald Shirley, who was born in Pensacola, Florida, in 1927, to Jamaican immigrant parents: a mother who was a teacher and a father an Episcopalian priest. He was a musical prodigy who made his debut with the Boston Pops at 18, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. If Shirley had been born 20 years later, he might have had the career enjoyed by Andre Watts, who born in 1946. But in the late 1940s, when he was in his 20s, impresario Sol Hurok advised him that America was not ready for a black classical pianist, so instead he toured performing his own arrangements of pop tunes accompanied by cello and double-bass. His trio recorded successful albums marketed as jazz during the 1950s and 60s, but he also released a solo LP of his piano improvisations that sounds more like Debussy or Scriabin, and he composed organ symphonies, string quartets, concertos, chamber works, and a symphonic tone poem based on the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. The 2018 Oscar-winning film Green Book sparked renewed interest in Shirley’s career as a performer, but those of us curious to hear his organ symphonies and concert works hope they get a second look as well. Music Played in Today's Program Donald Shirley (1927-2013): Orpheus in the Underworld; Donald Shirley, piano; Cadence CLP-1009

2 min

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John Birge

Host

4.7

out of 5

176 Ratings

History is Interesting

03/05/2025

Pudelmom

The historical tidbits add interesting background.
Gut

12/04/2024

Fill makes Games

Gut, sehr gut.
Make it a longer show?

09/29/2024

HarrierLG

My only complaint of Composer's Datebook is that it is too short! Perhaps a five minute snippet instead of two? Include score illustrations on the web site?
Nice Musical Podcast

08/02/2024

tara starlong

I like to listen to the Nutcracker

Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.